In general a file is a named location to store information. In python there are various file related operations that we can perform. In this context, first we have to open a file. Python has a built-in open() function to open a file. This function returns a file object, also called a handle. At the time of opening a file, we can specify a mode like read, write, append or create.

There are four different modes to open a file:

• "r" - Read - Opens a file for reading, error if the file does not exist
• "w" - Write - Opens a file for writing, creates the file if it does not exist
• "a" - Append - Opens a file for appending, creates the file if it does not exist
• "x" - Create - Creates the specified file, returns an error if the file exists

In addition you can specify if the file should be handled as binary or text mode

• "t" - Text - Default value. Text mode
• "b" - Binary - Binary mode (e.g. images)